Germany's vice chancellor on Wednesday harshly condemned remarks by a prominent member of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, who suggested ending the country's decades-long tradition of acknowledging and atoning for its Nazi past.

Sigmar Gabriel wrote on Facebook that even though he knows the [rightwing] AfD party thrives on provocation, the comments by Bjoern Hoecke, who leads the party in the eastern state of Thuringia, were "shocking."

"This is not just some kind of provocation," Gabriel wrote. "We must never let this kind of demagoguery be undisputed."

Hoecke had called the Berlin memorial to the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust a "monument of shame." He told party supporters in the eastern city of Dresden that no other country would erect such a memorial in its capital and called instead for Germany to take a "positive" attitude toward its history. He also said Germany needs to perform a "180-degree turn" when it comes to remembering its past.